The Impossible Vanish

"Cars don't just disappear into thin air. Except apparently they do, and one of them belongs to our person of interest. Perfect."

The pursuit reached a fever pitch as the two cars wound their way around the hillside ahead of us. They zigzagged along Collinsvale Road with complete disregard for safety, taking corners at speed, their reckless driving evident in every swerving movement. We followed, Karl matching their pace with skill that would have been impressive if I'd had time to appreciate it, but all my attention was divided between watching the road ahead and waiting for the computer to return results on that plate number.

The cars continued their desperate flight onto Collins Cap Road, the route becoming more treacherous as we climbed higher into the hills. The rain, if possible, seemed to be getting worse, visibility dropping to barely twenty metres. The world had narrowed to taillights ahead and the rhythmic sweep of our wipers and the sustained roar of our engine.

Then suddenly, almost unexpectedly, the cars made a sharp turn onto Springdale Road.

"Looks like they're looping back," Karl noted, his tone laced with surprise and what might have been grudging respect for the tactical thinking. He'd clearly been mentally mapping their route in real-time, anticipating where they might go next.

Without hesitation—without even asking my opinion or checking with dispatch—Karl slammed on the brakes. The anti-lock system kicked in immediately, the car shuddering as it fought to maintain control while shedding speed as quickly as physics would allow. We came to a jarring halt that sent me forward against my seatbelt, the strap cutting across my chest and shoulder with uncomfortable force.

"What are you doing?" I asked, my voice tinged with incredulity and perhaps a touch of panic. Every instinct I possessed screamed at me to continue the pursuit, to stay on the heels of those speeding cars, to maintain visual contact. Stopping felt wrong, counterintuitive, potentially disastrous to the entire operation.

But Karl's response was calm and calculated, delivered with absolute certainty. "We're going back. The distance is shorter, and we can cut them off when they arrive at the intersection."

Before I could formulate any kind of response, he'd shifted the car into reverse and hit the accelerator. The patrol car shot backward with the same aggressive energy it had moved forward with moments before. Then, with a swift pull of the handbrake, Karl spun the car around in a controlled yet aggressive manoeuvre.

The world rotated around us in a controlled spin, tyres screaming, g-forces pushing me against the door. Then Karl dropped the car back into drive and surged forward in the opposite direction, heading back the way we'd come.

"Jeez, Karl!" I exclaimed, my hands grasping both the dashboard and door handle for stability as the sudden changes in direction and velocity threatened to throw me around the cabin like loose cargo. The manoeuvre was disorienting in the extreme—one moment we'd been chasing, the next we were retreating, and the sudden reversal left my stomach somewhere back on Collinsvale Road.

But as my brain caught up with what Karl was doing, I had to admit—grudgingly, silently—that it was actually brilliant. If the suspects were looping back around, taking a more direct route to intercept them at a predictable point was tactically sound. We'd arrive ahead of them, could set up a proper intercept, maybe even coordinate with other units to box them in safely rather than continuing this dangerous high-speed chase through residential areas in appalling conditions.

The radio crackled to life again, the dispatcher's voice cutting through my internal assessment. "CITY632," they announced with that same professional calm, "the chopper has you in sight. You are still in front of them. If you're quick, you'll cut them off. Other units are preparing a spike strip at the end of Glenlusk Road as a precaution."

"Copy that," I responded immediately, my voice steady despite the adrenaline spike Karl's manoeuvre had triggered. My free hand reached for the centre console, bracing myself as Karl drove with expert precision towards the intersection with Springdale Road. The coordination between us and the chopper overhead and the other units preparing their defensive positions gave us a significant tactical advantage—assuming we could capitalise on it in time.

Just another day at work, really.

The computer chose that moment to ping, the result of my earlier registration query finally returning. I glanced down at the screen, expecting a routine owner name and address.

What I saw instead made my blood run cold.

"Shit!" I blurted out.

Karl slowed the vehicle to a stop near the intersection. His eyebrows furrowed in concern as he turned to look at me properly for the first time since the pursuit had begun. "What is it?" he asked, his voice steady but filled with genuine curiosity and perhaps a touch of concern.

"The rego check found a match," I explained, my voice cracking slightly with disbelief at what I was seeing on the screen. The implications were running through my mind at lightning speed, connections forming and reforming as I tried to make sense of this development. "It's Gladys Cramer's!"

"Gladys!" Karl echoed, his own surprise evident in the single word. His hands tightened on the steering wheel, knuckles whitening slightly. "Are you sure?"

"Positive," I confirmed, my confidence growing despite the bizarre coincidence—or was it a coincidence? "I mean, I could have misread the plate, but seriously, the odds of a misread returning a person of interest like this would be insane!"

Gladys Cramer. The woman who'd been driving Jamie Greyson's vehicle when we'd stopped her yesterday. The woman who'd been behaving suspiciously, giving inconsistent accounts, clearly hiding something about the disappearances we were investigating. The woman who was somehow connected to the entire tangled mess of the Greyson-Jeffries case that had consumed the past few days.

And now her car—her car—was one of the vehicles we'd been chasing at dangerous speeds through Collinsvale in torrential rain.

Time seemed to slow down as we sat there in the patrol car at the intersection, engine idling, lights still flashing their red and blue warning to no one. The rain continued its relentless assault against the windows, each drop catching the spinning light and creating a surreal, almost hypnotic effect. I rotated my gaze between all the car windows, scanning vigilantly for any sign of the approaching vehicles, my eyes darting from one direction to another, trying to penetrate the curtain of rain that shrouded our surroundings.

Where are they? The question echoed in my mind, a knot of tension forming in my stomach. They should have arrived by now.

If Karl's calculations were correct—and they usually were—the suspects should have reached this intersection already. We'd taken the shorter route, they'd looped around the longer way. By all rights, we should be seeing them any second now, their headlights cutting through the rain, giving us the opportunity to intercept them safely.

But there was nothing. Just rain and grey visibility and the continuous sweep of our wipers and the unease growing in my gut.

The situation was rapidly evolving into something far more complicated than a simple high-speed pursuit. Gladys Cramer—a name already entangled in our current investigation, already connected to suspicious disappearances and inconsistent testimonies—now potentially linked to this dangerous chase. It was a development I hadn't expected, a connection that opened up dozens of new questions and possibilities.

How did Gladys fit into all this? Was she one of the drivers? Was her vehicle stolen? Was she connected to the other vehicle as well? What the hell was going on?

The possibilities were numerous, and each one opened up a different avenue of investigation, each one suggesting different implications for the cases we were already juggling. My mind raced, trying to piece together the puzzle with this new information, trying to understand how this fit into the larger picture of missing persons and increasingly bizarre circumstances.

Every second that ticked by only added to the suspense, to the growing certainty that something was wrong with our calculations or assumptions. The rain drummed its relentless rhythm on the roof. The wipers swept back and forth. The lights spun. And still no sign of the vehicles that should have been here by now.

Where the hell are they?

The sudden, ear-piercing noise from the radio caught us completely off guard—a sharp, invasive screech of feedback or interference that seemed to bypass my ears and go straight into my brain like an ice pick.

"Aargh!" we both shouted in unison, hands flying instinctively to cover our ears against the assault. The sound was sharp, invasive, and completely unexpected, the kind of audio nightmare that made you question whether your eardrums were still intact.

"What the fuck was that!?" I couldn't help but exclaim, my heart racing from the sudden jolt, adrenaline spiking again but for entirely different reasons than the pursuit. The pain in my head, which had been a dull background throb, flared back to life with renewed vigour, joining the chorus of discomfort my body was currently experiencing.

Before we could even begin to process what had just happened—interference from the chopper? Equipment malfunction? Something else entirely?—Dispatch's voice crackled loudly through the radio again, breaking the brief moment of shocked silence.

"CITY632," the dispatcher announced with notable urgency, "the vehicles have turned down Myrtle Forest Road. The chopper has lost visual on them."

"Shit!" Karl's reaction was instantaneous, frustration evident in every syllable. His foot slammed down on the accelerator before the dispatcher had even finished speaking, propelling the patrol car into rapid motion down Springdale Road towards Myrtle Forest. The urgency was clear, palpable, demanding immediate response, but the situation was becoming increasingly puzzling with each new development.

"I don't understand," I said, my confusion evident in my voice as I tried to make sense of what we were being told. "Where are they? How could the chopper have lost them?"

Myrtle Forest Road led into dense bushland, areas where the canopy was thick enough to provide natural cover from aerial surveillance. But to lose visual completely? In the middle of a pursuit? That suggested either the chopper had mechanical issues, or the weather was even worse than we thought, or—

Or what? What other explanation could there be?

"I don't know," Karl replied, his tone echoing my confusion as he focused on the road ahead. His jaw was set in that particular way that indicated frustration and determination in equal measures, his entire body language projecting intense concentration as he navigated the wet roads at speeds that were probably inadvisable given conditions.

And why the hell would they be heading toward the forest?

The thought nagged at me, adding another layer of complexity to an already baffling situation. Myrtle Forest was beautiful in good weather, popular with bushwalkers and tourists, but in this deluge? It was impassable in most places, the trails turning to muddy streams, the dense canopy providing only minimal shelter from rain this heavy. Why would anyone fleeing police head in that direction? It was the automotive equivalent of painting yourself into a corner—limited exit routes, easy to block off, nowhere to go but deeper into wilderness that would eventually stop even the most capable four-wheel drive.

Unless they knew something we didn't. Unless there was a purpose to this route that wasn't immediately apparent. Unless—

My mind raced through possibilities, each one seeming more unlikely than the last, but none of them making more sense than the others.

Moments later, Karl slammed on the brakes as we reached what appeared to be the end of navigable road. I braced myself hard against the dashboard, my injured hand protesting the impact, the car coming to a screeching halt that sent a jolt through my entire body and probably didn't do my concussion any favours.

The sudden stop left us both momentarily disoriented, the transition from high-speed pursuit to complete stillness jarring in the extreme. I quickly regained my composure—or at least the appearance of it—ready to jump into action despite the accumulating injuries and exhaustion that were starting to make themselves known again now that the immediate adrenaline spike was fading.

My eyes darted around, searching desperately for any sign of the vehicles we'd been pursuing, any indication of which direction they'd gone. The forest loomed ahead of us through the rain, dense and dark and ominous, its thick foliage a stark contrast to the open roads we'd been navigating. The trees seemed to swallow light and sound equally, creating an oppressive sense of being watched by something vast and impenetrable.

The tension in the car was palpable as Karl snatched the radio from my hand, his movements sharp and urgent, frustration evident in every gesture. "This is CITY632. Do you have a visual on the vehicles again?" His voice was a mixture of hope and determination, seeking any clue that could lead us back on track, any information that might make sense of how we'd lost them.

The response from dispatch came immediately but was thoroughly disheartening. "CITY632. No, there is no visual on either car."

"Fuck!" Karl's frustration erupted as he yelled and pummelled his fists against the steering wheel with enough force that I worried briefly about the structural integrity of the wheel itself.

I understood the feeling entirely. We'd had them. We'd been right behind them, coordinated with aerial support, positioned perfectly to intercept. And somehow, impossibly, they'd just... vanished.

Compelled by the same sense of urgency and mounting desperation, I didn't hesitate to follow Karl's lead as he threw open his door and stepped out into the relentless downpour. The heavy rain immediately soaked through what little of my clothing had managed to approach dryness during the pursuit, cold water finding every gap and seam with gleeful efficiency. But I was determined to find something—a clue, a sign, anything that could give us a lead on the cars' whereabouts.

Vehicles didn't simply disappear into thin air. They left traces—tyre marks, broken branches, disturbed ground, something. The idea that they could have completely evaporated from existence was inconceivable, logically impossible. There had to be a trail, had to be evidence we were overlooking, had to be some explanation for how we'd lost them so completely.